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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24750688">The Long Way Around</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/pseuds/ami_ven'>ami_ven</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Back to the Future (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Community: writerverse, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Time Travel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:14:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>587</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24750688</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/pseuds/ami_ven</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Marty arrives in the future, but this time he took the long way.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Emmett "Doc" Brown &amp; Marty McFly, Emmett "Doc" Brown/Clara Clayton, Marty McFly/Jennifer Parker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Long Way Around</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for LJ community "writerverse" challenge (time jump)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Huh,” said Marty, setting down his box of cereal a little harder than he’d meant to, and staring at the page-a-day calendar that Jennifer kept on the windowsill.</p>
<p>
  <i>October 21, 2015</i>
</p>
<p>Today was the day he’d gone back to, thirty years ago, to fix the problem with his son.  Amazingly, he’d almost forgotten – after Doc had brought Clara and their boys back from the wild west, he’d dismantled the time train and turned his scientific experiments to other areas.  </p>
<p>The actual future wasn’t quite the same.  He hadn’t really noticed, living it, how things had changed after he’d avoided getting in that car wreck with Needles.  He had married Jennifer, but in a beautiful church wedding with both of their families present.  They still lived in Lyon Estates, in the same house he’d visited before, and they still had two children, Marty Jr. and Marlene – Jennifer had chosen their names, and he’d only smiled and agreed.</p>
<p>But Marty didn’t work for some paper-pushing company.  His time-travel adventures had given him the courage to pursue his music and although he <i>had</i> been good, he’d found that he liked being behind the mixing board better than being at the mic.  McFly Productions had a dozen young artists working for them, now, and being the boss meant he could still record his own music, when he wanted.</p>
<p>Marty put the cereal box back and poured himself a cup of coffee.  He sat at the table as Jennifer came down, then the children, fixing their breakfasts and talking around him.  He kissed his wife as she left for work, saw the kids onto their school bus, then walked past the garage and down to the sidewalk.</p>
<p>He didn’t walk very much anymore, had traded in his pickup truck years ago for a more family-friendly sedan and tended to drive anywhere he was going.  But today, he walked.  He stopped to look at the clock tower – the historical society had raised enough money in 1985 to get the clock running again.  The Café 80s had never come to be – it was still the same old malt shop it had always been, and Marty was kind of glad for that.  It was different, seeing it this time around, having seen the sudden change from 1955 to 1985, then the gradual changes until now, 2015.</p>
<p>Marty turned the corner onto a quiet residential street, jogging up to a door he knew almost as well as his own.</p>
<p>“Hello, Marty!” said Clara Brown, smiling.  “Emmett is expecting you, he’s in his workshop.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, ma’am,” Marty said, with a teasing smile in return, and she shooed him through the house.</p>
<p>Doc was at his desk, but he wasn’t working on plans or diagrams.  Instead, he sat leaning back in his chair, a tumbler of dark liquid in one hand.</p>
<p>“Whiskey, Doc?” said Marty.  “Remember what happened last time.”</p>
<p>The older man smiled.  “Oh, I remember.  This is iced tea.  Care for some?”</p>
<p>“Sure.”</p>
<p>Doc poured a second glass and passed it over.  “So,” he said, after a long pause.  “The future.  That’s pretty heavy.”</p>
<p>“Great Scott,” said Marty.  He took a sip of iced tea.  “Kinda better the second time around, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>“Yes, it is,” said Doc, glancing at the framed photo on his desk – both of their families at the annual Hill Valley Clock Tower Festival, back when Marty’s kids were in middle school, before Jules’s youngest child had been born, when Verne had had that terrible haircut.  “Yes, it is.”</p>
<p>THE END</p>
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